XXVI
AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION
THERE was nobody near the half burned-out camp-fire, but there wereevidences in plenty of the fact that somebody had cooked and eatenthere that day. There were no cooking utensils lying about, but therewas a structure of green sticks upon which somebody had evidentlybeen roasting meat; there were freshly opened oyster shells scatteredaround—“the beginnings of a kitchen midden,” Dick observed—and manyother small indications of recent human presence. Especially, Calnoticed, that some smouldering brands of the fire had been carefullyburied in ashes—manifestly to serve as the kindlers of a fresh firewhen one should be needed. Finally, Tom discovered a hunting knife withits point stuck into the bark of a tree, as if its owner had plannedto secure it in that way until it should be needed again, just as ahouse-wife hangs up her gridiron when done with it for the time being.
As the three were discovering these things and interpreting theirmeaning, Larry joined them and suggested a search of the woods andthickets round about.
“Why not try nature’s own method first?” Tom asked.
“How’s that?”
“Yelling. That’s the way a baby does when it wants to attractattention, and it generally accomplishes its purpose. That’s why I callit nature’s own method. Besides, it covers more ground than lookingcan, especially in an undergrowth as thick as that around this littleopen spot.”
“It is rather thick,” said Larry, looking round him.
“Thick? Why, a cane brake is wind-swept prairie land in comparison.Let’s yell all together and see if we can’t make the hermit of Quasihear.”
The experiment was tried, not once, but many times, with no effect, anda search of the immediate vicinity proved equally futile.
“There seems to be nothing to do but wait,” Larry declared, at last.“The man in distress must have gone away in search of food. He isstarving perhaps, and—”
“Not quite that,” said Cal. “He may be craving a tapioca pudding orsome other particular article of diet, but he isn’t starving.”
“How do you know, Cal?”
“Oh, it is only that he has a haunch of venison—sun-crusted forpurposes of preservation—hanging in that tree there”—pointing—“andunless he is more different kinds of a lunatic than the chief engineerof any insane asylum ever heard of, he wouldn’t starve with that onhand.”
“Perhaps it is spoiled,” said Tom, looking up the tree where thevenison hung and where Cal alone had seen it.
“It isn’t spoiled, either,” answered Cal, with assurance.
“But how can you tell when you’re ten or twenty feet away from it?” Tomstopped to ask.
“The carrion crows can tell at almost any distance,” Cal returned, “andif it were even tainted, they’d be quarreling over it.”
Tom was not satisfied, and so he climbed the tree to inspect. Slidingdown again, he gave judgment:
“Why, the thing’s as black as ink and as hard as the bark of a whiteoak tree. It’s dried beef—or dried venison, rather.”
“You’re mistaken, Tom,” said Larry. “It is sun-crusted, as Cal said,but that’s very different. Inside it is probably as juicy as a steakfrom a stall-fed ox.”
“What do you mean by ‘sun-crusted,’” asked Dick.
“Oh, I see,” Larry answered. “You and Tom are not familiar with our wayof preserving meat in emergencies. When we are out hunting and have ajoint of fresh red meat that we want to keep fresh, we don’t salt itor smoke it or do anything of that sort to it. We just hang it out inthe very strongest sunlight we can find. In a brief while the surfaceof the meat is dried into a thin black crust as hard as wood, and afterthat it will keep for days in any cool, shady place. Flies cannot borethrough the hard crust, and the air itself is shut out from the meatbelow the surface.”
“How long will it keep in that way?”
“How long, Cal?” asked Larry, referring the question to his brother’slarger experience.
“That depends on several things,” Cal answered. “I’ve kept meat in thatway for a week or ten days, and at other times I’ve eaten my wholesupply at the first meal. But I say, fellows, we’re wasting precioustime. The night cometh when no man can work, and we have a good deal todo before it comes. We must find a safe anchorage for the _Hunkydory_and set up a camp for ourselves. In aid of that we must find freshwater, and I have an idea we’ll find that somewhere along under theline of bluffs—at some point where they trend well back from the shorewith a sandy beach between. The hermit must get water from somewherenear, and there’s no sign of any around here.”
Cal’s conjecture proved to be right. A little spring at the foot of thebluff had been dug out and framed around with sticks to keep the marginfrom crumbling.
Obviously this was the hermit’s source of water supply.
“But why in the name of common sense,” said Larry, “didn’t he set uphis Lares and Penates somewhere near the spring?”
“I can think of two reasons,” Cal answered, “either of which issufficient to answer your question.”
“Go ahead—what are they?”
“One is, that he may be a crank, and another is, that he may be aprudent, sensible person, preferring comfort with inconvenience, toconvenience with discomfort.”
“Now, then, Sphinx, unravel your riddle.”
“Its meaning ought to be obvious,” Cal drawled, “but as it isn’t, I’llexplain it. The man is probably a crank. If not, he wouldn’t have setup a signal of distress and then have gone away and hidden himself sothat if rescuers came they couldn’t find him. To a crank like that anyfoolishness is easily possible. On the other hand, if he happens to bea man of practical common sense—as there is equally good reason tobelieve—he would very naturally pitch his camp up where it is, ratherthan here where you fellows are already fighting the sand flies thatwill be heavily reinforced toward nightfall.”
“That’s so!” said the others.
“Of course it’s so. Anybody would know that, after slapping his cheekstill they feel as if they had been cured with mustard plasters, andweren’t half well yet.”
“What shall we do, Cal?” Tom asked.
“Why, imitate the hermit and improve upon his ideas.”
“You mean—” began Larry.
“I mean we must go up on the bluff and pitch our camp a hundred yardsor so back from the beach. Otherwise we shall all be bored as full ofholes as a colander before we stretch our weary limbs upon mother earthfor sleep.”
“That’s all right,” said Tom, “but you haven’t told us about theimprovement upon the hermit’s ideas. Do you mean we should go fartherback from the water?”
“No, I didn’t mean that, though we’ll do it. I meant that instead ofcarrying water from this brackish spring we’ll dig a well where wepitch our tent of palmete leaves.”
“But you said—”
“I know I did; but that was in swampy land where the only water tobe had by digging was an exudation from muck. It is very differenthere. These bluffs and all the high ground that lies back of themare composed of clean clay and clean sand. Look at the bank and seefor yourself. Now all we’ve got to do to get sweet, wholesome wateranywhere on the higher land—which isn’t as high a little way back asit is here at the face of the bluff—is to dig down to the level of thesea. There we’ll find sea water that has been freed from salt and allother impurities by siping through a mixture of clay and sand that isas perfect a filter as can be imagined.”
“Now if you’ve finished that cataract of words, Cal,” said Larry, “wemust get to work or night will be on us before we’re ready for it. Yougo and pick out a camping place, and the rest of us will follow youwith things from the boat. We can dig the well and build a shelterto-morrow.”
But Tom and Dick were full of enthusiasm, now that they had at last gotto Quasi, and they had both tasted the water of the spring. Its flavorstrongly stimulated their eagerness for something more palatable.
“Why not begin the wel
l now—as soon as we get the things up from theboat?” asked Dick. “There’ll be a moon nearly full, and the sea breezehere is cool. I for one am ready to dig till midnight.”
“I’ll dig all night,” said Tom, “rather than take another swig of thatstuff. If we work hard we can get the well in commission before we useall the water left in the kegs.”
“We sha’n’t have to dig all night,” said Cal. “I’ll pick out a placewhere we needn’t go down more than eight or nine feet, and this sandyearth is easily handled. If we’re really industrious and don’t wastemore time over supper than we must, we’ll strike water within a fewhours, and it’ll be settled and clear by morning. But we must hustleif we’re to do that. So load yourselves up while I pick out a camp andI’ll join the caravan of carriers in the next load.”
It was necessary, of course, to remove everything from the boat tothe bivouac, as it was the purpose of the company to make this theirheadquarters for several weeks to come, or at least for as long asthey liked.
It was nearly sunset, therefore, when that part of the work was done,and it was decreed that Larry should get supper while the rest workedat well-digging.
As there remained no fresh meat among their stores, Larry’s first taskwas to go out with his gun in search of game. Squirrels were abundantall about the place, and very easily shot, as they had never beenhunted. As the time was short, Larry contented himself with the killingof a dozen or so of the fat rodents, suppressing for the time beinghis strong impulse to go after game of a more elusive and thereforemore aristocratic sort. He did indeed take one shot at a flock ofrice birds, killing a good many of them, but mutilating their tenderlittle butter-balls of bodies because he used bird shot instead of the“mustard seed” size, which alone is fit for rice-bird shooting.
On his return to the bivouac to cook his game, he found the wellalready sunk to nearly half the required depth, and by the time he wasready to bid his comrades cease their work and come to supper, at leastanother foot had been added to its depth.
The work was easy, not only because the sandy soil was easily shoveledout without the use of picks or spades, but because of the form Cal’sobservation of other temporary well digging had taught him to give tothe excavation.
“We’re not really digging a well,” he explained at the outset. “We’reonly scooping out a basin in order to get to water. So instead ofworking in a narrow hole, we’ll take a bowl for our model—a bowl eightor ten feet across at the top and growing rapidly narrower as we godown. Working in that way, we’ll not only get on faster and with lesslabor, but we’ll spare ourselves the necessity of cribbing up the sidesof our water hole to keep them from falling in. Besides, the fartherdown we get the less work each additional foot of digging will cost us.”
When Larry announced supper, all the company admitted that they “hadtheir appetites with them”; but Cal did not at once “fall to” as theothers did. Instead, he went into the woods a little way, secured adry, dead and barkless stick about five feet long, and drove it intothe bottom of the excavation. Pulling it out again after waitingfor twenty or thirty seconds, he closely scrutinized its end. Then,measuring off a part of it with his hands so placed as to coverapproximately a foot of space at each application, he tossed the stickaside and joined the others at their meal.
Nobody interrupted the beginning of his supper by asking him questions,but after he had devoured two or three rice birds the size of marblesand had begun on the hind leg of a broiled squirrel which lay upon anopen baked sweet potato, he volunteered a hint of what he had beendoing.
“As nearly as I can measure it with my hands, we’ll come to waterabout three feet further down, boys. We’ve acquitted ourselves noblyas sappers and miners, and are entitled to take plenty of time forsupper and a good little rest afterwards—say till the moon, which isjust now coming up out of its bath in the sea out there, rises highenough to shine into our hole. That will be an hour hence, perhaps, andthen we’ll shovel sand like plasterers making mortar. It won’t take usmore than an hour or so to finish the job, and we’ll get to sleep longbefore midnight.”
“How did you find out how far down the water was, Cal,” asked Tom,who was always as hungry for information as a school boy is for greenapples or any other thing that carries a threat of stomach ache with it.
“Why, I drove a dry stick down—one that would show a wetting if it gotit—till it moved easily up and down. I knew then that it had reachedthe water-saturated sand. I pushed it on down till the upper end waslevel with our present bottom. Then I drew it out and measured the drypart and six inches or so of the wet. That told me how far down we mustgo for the water.”
“It’s very simple,” said Tom.
“I’ve noticed that most things are so when one understands them,” saidDick. “For example—”
What Dick’s example was there is now no way of finding out, for at thatpoint in his little speech the conversation was interrupted by a ratheroddly-dressed man who broke through the barrier of bushes and presentedhimself, bowing and smiling, to the company.